There's been so much rumor-hawking and speculation the past few weeks that whether you're …
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Positioned next to the front-facing camera, the new piece of hardware revealed in the shots are suspiciously NFC chip-shaped, and are located exactly where NFC chips appear in Apple's patents that include them. That said, all anyone has to go on is a leaked picture, so it's impossible to know for sure.

If Apple did include NFC in the new iPhone, however, it would be in a position to take on Google Wallet and there'd suddenly be a lot more people who might be interested in using the technology. Passbook already looks promising and it's just begging to use NFC instead of QR codes. It looks like that could be the plan, but we'll just have to wait to see whether or not Apple is barking up that tree with the new device. [9to5Mac]